


I could lie tangent to your curves

by RurouniHime



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Awkward Flirting, Bodyguard, Canon-Typical Violence, Consent Issues, Don't copy to another site, Dubious Consent, First Kiss, First Time, Flashbacks, Gift Fic, Humor, Insecure Tony, M/M, Major Character Injury, Marvel Trumps Hate 2018, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, New York City, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Power Imbalance, Protective Steve, Romance, Tony Stark Flirts, War Veteran Steve Rogers, marvel trumps hate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-03-30 21:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19036411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RurouniHime/pseuds/RurouniHime
Summary: Steve is bodyguard to a prominent young socialite with too much genius on his hands... and who has taken an unfortunate shine to him.(Written for royal_chandler, who won the bid for my offer in Marvel Trumps Hate 2018.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [royal_chandler](https://archiveofourown.org/users/royal_chandler/gifts).



> **PLEASE MIND THE WARNINGS.** This fic is a gift fic, written to a specific prompt with bodyguard!Steve and barely legal!Tony, and involves an age difference and rampant Starkian flirtation. Tony is a legal adult in this. But he's only just turned 18, and though Steve's age is not specified, I picture him at least mid-twenties. There are dub-con elements in terms of Tony pushing things after Steve has indicated his discomfort, and there is definitely a power imbalance between them (i.e., Steve is supposed to be protecting Tony, not macking on him, and Tony holds some control over Steve's employment status). **If this set-up is not your gig, please back button now.**
> 
> Title is from the brilliant nerdy pick up line, "I wish I was your derivative so I could lie tangent to your curves," because Tony would totally use that on Steve, with prejudice. 
> 
> (He'd also use these: "If you were a contract, you’d be the _fine_ print" and "Our love is like the number Pi, irrational and never ending." To which Steve would go *SIIIIIIIIIIIIGH*)
> 
> Thank you so much to snottygrrl for betaing!!!

**I could lie tangent to your curves**

.  
.

“…and I was thinking, if you have nowhere else to be tonight—or tomorrow or the day after—you might consider coming over to mine and continuing your dance routine. I have poles, I installed them myself. And perfect gentlemanly behavior if that’s what you’re into. If not, we could always hey hey _hey!”_

“Ma’am?” Steve hoisted Tony further off the ground by the (very sturdily sewn, thank the patron saint of multimillionaires) collar of his Joseph & Feiss blazer and wheeled him away from the go-go dancer in question. “Please excuse us.”

“Alright,” she said, gave Tony a wide-eyed little wave, and tipped her head sideways to give Steve a thorough onceover as well. She smirked. “Later, Tony.”

Steve smiled politely, glad of the club’s flashing lights to hide his blush, and headed for the entrance.

“Okay, uncalled for,” his charge grumped, shouting to be heard over the music. His shoulders were hunched up, both arms flailing out to the sides, constrained by his coat. “That was, look, I wasn’t going to proposition her, she just dances like a dubstep goddess, do you know how few strippers even touch that genre? Tanisha’s a New York hero, Rogers, you ought to be ashamed of yourself for standing in the way of, Steve, Steve, alright already, _point taken.”_

Steve let go of Tony’s collar, but only because they were now outside the club where the pulsing beat only jumped up into his lower belly instead of his chest cavity. Tony stumbled to the sidewalk and straightened, shedding the blazer and yanking at the lines of his trousers. Within seconds, he was crisp and neat again, shirt tucked, jacket over one arm, hair curling rakishly across his forehead. He smiled beatifically at the paparazzi as they called out and flashed their cameras, muttering between his teeth. “Hi, yeah, here I am, you fucking morons, zoom in.”

Steve steered Tony in the direction they’d been headed ten minutes ago: the Rolls idling at the curb. When he guided Tony into the back seat with a well-disguised push between his shoulder blades, the driver sighed in relief.

“Jeez, Boss,” was all Happy said. Unhappily.

Steve folded himself into the car, unbuttoning his suit jacket as he sat, and pulled the door firmly shut behind him.

“Oh my god, Hap, don’t look at me like that, you’re killing me here. Steve,” Tony whined, turning to face him on the bench seat. God, he looked about five when he did that, and the long-familiar ache in Steve’s chest settled lower into his gut where all that music had been kicking around. It tended to spend a lot more time there lately.

“What,” Steve offered, as amiably as he could given the hand shaking his thigh. 

“I wanted to see her dance.”

“I’m sure that’s all you wanted to see her do,” Steve said, meeting Happy’s commiserating eyes in the rearview mirror. 

“Well.” Tony stopped shaking and patted Steve’s thigh absently. Steve resisted the urge to squirm. “Only if she wanted to show me.”

Steve gave up and grabbed Tony’s hand before it wandered too high; Tony had turned to look out the window and his fingers were ticking and tapping in that absent way they did when his brain had gone into overdrive. Steve shuddered to think what could have caught his attention.

“Oh, burger. Burger, Hap. U-turn, Steve wants fries.”

“I do not want fries.”

“Lies.” Somehow Tony’s hand had wiggled its way free and was back on Steve’s leg. “Falsehoods. You always want fries. And a chocolate milkshake to dip them in.”

“I—”

Tony eyeballed him, looking like a sixty-year-old mob boss now, holy shit. “Liars go to hell, Captain Rogers. Don’t be that bodyguard.”

 _Lying is the least of my sins, Tony,_ Steve thought, half miserable and half used to it. Tony’s shirt clung to his broadening shoulders, open at the throat and slim at the waist, and his pants, though not Joseph & Feiss, might as well have been bespoke for the way they hugged his legs. Steve was just lucky the kid was officially eighteen now. The things he thought about sometimes when Tony was jabbering quantum optics at him— 

_Can it, Rogers. He’s only been eighteen for exactly…oh, Mother Mary, four minutes and two seconds._ Steve dropped his wrist with the offending watch on it and thought decisively punishing thoughts.

“Here, this one.” Tony patted his leg excitedly, knocking a finger into the window to direct Happy to the parking lot. “I already ordered, so you just stay here, I’ll hop on in there and—”

“Nope,” Steve said, already out of the car. “Happy, if you would?”

“Aw, Steve, no!” Tony wailed, jiggling the handle, but Steve had heard the comforting pop of the locks. Tony wasn’t going anywhere.

That said, Tony got the window halfway down before Happy locked that up, too. Steve rounded the car, buttoning the waist of his jacket again, to see Tony’s head and one shoulder through the aperture. He planted a hand on Tony’s forehead and carefully but firmly pushed him back inside.

“Steve, please,” and Steve had heard his share of whiners—he went through boot camp, thank you very much—but how did Tony Stark make one syllable into five syllables with such artistic flare? He sighed, bending over until he was on eye level with his charge. Because that was what Tony was: his charge. His responsibility.

“Stay here.”

Tony’s pout was legendary. Steve had heard, with a pang (and compliments of one James Rhodes), how very effective it was on the girls at co-ed college parties. “It’s my birthday.”

“And you already disappeared on me once. Zero-strikes rule, Tony. You’re lucky you’re getting your burger.”

Tony’s face fell even more. He stretched out a hand and fiddled with Steve’s sleeve, tentative plucks of his fingers. “I wasn’t trying to ditch you.”

The problem was, Steve believed him. As incredible as it seemed, Tony didn’t try to shake Steve. In fact, he did the opposite, constantly searching Steve out to jabber science at him or rearrange the historical biographies in his bookcase or just flop there on the couch in Steve’s private suite and wiggle his giant teenaged feet into Steve’s lap or under his legs. It was part of the problem, really. If Tony weren’t around so much during off hours, Steve wouldn’t be living this endless crisis of conscience. “Just sit tight, okay?”

Tony miseried all over him right up until the window slid closed.

Steve went inside, only to discover that Tony had not only ordered them all a burger, shake, and fries each, but a piece of the pie Steve loved so much, golden-crusted, spilling over with steaming, cinnamony apples and topped with a dollop of their homemade whipped cream. 

Steve was doing a lot of sighing tonight.

He got back into the car with his sacks of greasy goodness, feeling like a complete ogre, and passed Happy his food through the partition. He handed over the bag with Tony’s meal, then reached into his own for a handful of fries, popped the top off his shake, and dunked them all at once.

He held them up for Tony without looking at him and fought the fond smile at Tony’s crow of delight.

**

Anthony Edward Stark was worth a lot of money. A lot. Every government head, every diplomat, every despotic dictator in the world knew this, but what they didn’t usually know was just how high the amount really was. Tony had been kidnapped before, and had literally laughed his abductors out of the warehouse or van or, once, the poorly refurbished Winnebago Sunstar when they grandly presented their asking price on national television. 

Howard and Maria Stark had no delusions about the true amount their only son’s safety could compel, and it was exponentially less to pay for even the highest caliber personal bodyguard, especially one with Black Ops training. 

**

“Up,” Steve said, flicking the lights on and throwing open the curtains.

“Agh,” Tony strangled out into the pillow he’d yanked over his face. There were so many blankets on the bed that Steve could barely see him; just the tangle of dark hair sticking out like wayward grass in a parking lot. “Steve. You monster.”

“You should be grateful I didn’t just let Ms. Potts in here to get you up.”

“S’funny,” the pillow grumbled. “You calling her _Miz Potts._ S’Pepper.”

“Well, _Pepper_ is right outside. You know what, I’ll go get her.”

“No,” Tony yelped, to a veritable explosion of bedding. A pillow flopped to the floor, another smacking the wall above the headboard and tumbling back onto Tony’s face. The blankets flapped and flailed as he kicked at them, and muffled sounds evolved into words. “No, that’s, it’s okay, it’s fine.”

“You getting up then?”

Tony stumbled to his feet, one hand scruffing through his hair, and blinked blearily at the room as though he’d never seen it before. His pajama pants hung lopsided on his hips, one leg hem tucked well under his heel, and his top was twisted around his middle, the buttons straining against the fabric. “Steve. This is cruel and unusual. I am the birthday boy. I am hung over from birthdaying.”

Steve rolled his eyes. “You didn’t drink a damn thing last night.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Actually, I do. My job depends on me making sure you follow the law.”

“Oh captain, my _captain,”_ Tony returned with an impish grin. “I do like it when you swear.”

Steve gave Tony’s pajama top a firm tug to the left, righting the garment. “Alright, he’s decent.”

“Happy birthday, Mr. Stark,” Ms. Potts said, clacking in from the hall and once again conquering the thick shag in her stiletto heels. She was followed by an equally sedate Edwin Jarvis, dressed impeccably even at 8:30 in the morning and carrying a tray laden with waffles, coffee, and diced fruit. 

“Jarvis,” Tony moaned, making grabby hands for the tray. “Why do you keep letting these people into my room?”

“Many happy returns, sir,” Jarvis said, sweeping a napkin out and tucking it into the neck of Tony’s top as Tony snatched up the coffee. “Anna made your favorite this morning. Belgian waffles with whipped butter, banana slices, and Canadian maple syrup.”

“I love Anna,” Tony gurgled into his coffee. “I am going to marry Anna.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Ms. Potts said, waking up the tablet in her hands. “Today’s fully booked.”

“Whose dumb idea was that?”

“Yours.”

Tony made a face. “Oh.”

Jarvis gave Tony’s shoulder a squeeze and began setting his clothing out over one of the armchairs, while Ms. Potts ticked down the calendar. “You have VIP passes to the new gallery at MOMA with Ms. Frost at nine-thirty, followed by lunch with your mother at Del Posto, after which you both visit the arboretum. Then you’re going to Coney Island with Mr. Rhodes to, I quote, ‘eat our body weight in kettle corn’ before you, and again I quote, ‘smuggle him into Stark Enterprises so he can try out that crazy ass VR system Dad’s been hiding in the electro-conductor chamber.’ Between that and a late dinner with your father and Mr. Stane, you _may_ have time to marry Jarvis’s wife, if you rush.”

With that, she gave him a smile and headed for the door.

“She’s so hot,” Tony murmured, his eyes following her out.

Steve cleared his throat, which was a mistake. Tony’s bottomless brown eyes flicked his way.

“Not as hot as some people, though,” he continued, way too loud to be remotely sneaky. Accompanied by the unsubtle side-eye and the unexpected pinking of Tony’s cheeks, it really was ridiculous trying to ignore it. “Some people are just smoking. My favorites, in fact.” 

When Steve refused to respond, Tony flopped back down on the bed, his empty mug rolling across the pillows. “Steve. _Steve._ This is stupid.”

“What is?” 

“This!” he moaned, and for a horrifying second, Steve thought he was about to hear all about Tony’s misplaced crush. “You can’t let me decide birthday things when I’m coming down off of midterms, that’s allowing me to take advantage of myself in a weakened state!”

“Do you know how much sense that didn’t make?” Steve picked up the fallen pillow and dropped it back on Tony’s head. “All of it.”

Over by the closet, Jarvis snorted.

“Are you coming to lunch?” Tony said, stretching his arms and arching his back, which pulled his pajama top right up away from the trail of hair curving down his belly. “Please tell me you’re coming to lunch.”

Steve looked away. “I’m getting you _to_ lunch.”

Tony watched Steve from beneath low-slung eyelids. “And then also eating?”

“Reservation’s for two people.”

“So just let me sit in your lap already.”

“Tony,” Steve coughed. Had he no shame at all? “Your mother will be there.”

“So? She’ll be on her tablet dealing with the foundation. And I’m inviting you.”

“I’ll be there, too, by the wall, making sure no one takes any liberties with either of you,” he answered, which incited another groan and a restructuring of bedclothes. 

“Supposed to be my bodyguard,” Tony said mournfully from under the pillow. “Should be guarding my body.”

Steve’s flush was definitely redder than Tony’s. Luckily, Tony was still under the pillow. Jarvis, however, gave Steve a longsuffering look.

**

“I’m telling you, man.” Bucky and Steve split the lamppost, and then a stroller and the woman pushing it. “Ask for more money. You’ll get it.”

“I don’t want more money.” The evening was still warm, they’d been running for an hour already, and Steve was feeling the burn in his thighs, the comforting slick of sweat over his nape. “They’re giving me room and board in a mansion, plus full meals. Are you asking for more?”

“Not even close to the same thing. The woman I’m watching—and hell, Steve, what a woman—I get the feeling she doesn’t actually need me? I mean, I’m there and all, and I glare appropriately at Pierce’s goons, lurking around trying to intimidate the pigeons like they do, but I swear, there’s something else going on there. Nat’s a hell of a litigator but sometimes I get this weird feeling, like the firm could be a shell company for the Russian mob or something.”

“The Russian mob.”

“I don’t know, is the KGB still around?”

“FSB.”

“Fine, but my point is, Nat can take care of herself, I barely do jack. And that’s just the way I like it because frankly, I’m a little distracted when I’m around her, you know?”

Steve frowned at him. “Really, Buck?”

“Kidding! Mostly kidding. But this kid of yours is a real handful. I mean, he runs out on you—”

“Not on purpose.”

“He’s always antagonizing the local reps—”

“Okay, hold up, that was once, and it was Senator Stern, you can’t tell me that guy didn’t deserve exactly what he got.”

“Yeah, okay. But come on, Steve, the kid’s only been kidnapped, what, twice already?”

Steve’s heart speeds up, and it has nothing to do with running. “Three times, and _not_ on my watch.” He does not like thinking of those events. Tony’d still had the bruises on his face from the last one, dark and oppressive around his eye and along the side of his mouth, when the Starks brought Steve on board. “Plus, he talked himself out of it the third time.”

“No one’s arguing he’s smart,” Bucky allowed, signaling the final turn toward Central Park. “I mean, sweet mother Mary, have you seen the upgrades on this thing?” He waved his fully pneumatic prosthetic arm like a flapping bird and nearly took out a window-box full of petunias. “Ooh, sorry, Mr. Warren—Don’t give me that look, I didn’t touch your damn flowers!” He made a rude sign, then flipped back around from where he’d started running backwards. “Look, smart doesn’t cover it. Kid’s a certified genius. And this was just his semester project.”

Steve smiled, fond. “Don’t I know it.” 

“Probably rule the world by the time we’re thirty. But okay, that aside. I’m just saying that for what he puts you through, you could get double what you’re asking, and the firm would back it.”

Steve knew that, too. As private contractors went, SHIELD took care of its people. But Steve couldn’t possibly explain that he couldn’t put a price on the wear and tear Tony was really capable of doing to him, of how similar it actually was to why Bucky was having difficulties with his current detail, only Steve’s charge wasn’t a lawyer-cum-potential-Russian-spy just entering her thirties, and that was a big box he didn’t need to open during rush hour on 7th Avenue. “Buck, I don’t need more money. I’ve never—”

“Never needed more money, yeah, yeah, I got it.” Bucky shook his head, grinning a different kind of fond. He cuffed Steve on the back of the head, then darted out of reach as Steve tried to retaliate. “Too soft, Rogers, gone too freakin’ soft.”

“I’ll show you soft—” He chased a whooping Bucky through the gates into the park.

~tbc~


	2. Chapter 2

“Steve.”

“Hm.”

_“Steve.”_

“Hm?”

A loud huff, followed by the thump of Tony throwing down his work gloves. “Steve, you’re not even paying attention.”

“Am so.” Steve turned his sketchbook, shading carefully. “Room’s secure, you’re not on fire, and neither OPEC nor the SIS have brought a lawsuit. Doing my job perfectly today.”

“This, this behavior of yours is damaging our torrid relationship.”

“We do not have a torrid relationship.”

“And whose fault is that?” More tinkering, and a petulant sniff. “You could have a torrid relationship.”

“Tony—”

“With me.”

 _“Tony.”_

“Seriously, I’d give it up for you, right here. Clothing, off, two seconds.”

Steve’s cheeks were heating again, he couldn’t stop it. “Do not take your clothing off.” 

“Turn around, I’m naked as a baby’s butt.” 

Steve shook his head and turned his pencil to get a sharper line. “And probably giving yourself phosphorus burns.”

“Ha, no chance. You’d notice if I were, though. You’d have to come help. You wouldn’t be able to keep ignoring me.”

“I am not ignoring you—” 

“Because I have it on good authority that I am damn sexy in the nude.”

“Empirical proof, Stark, or it didn’t happen.”

“And I am so pissed I taught you that, but the point stands. Damn sexy. You could look all you want, I wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, I would.” For so many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that about the time Steve was agonizing over asking Peggy Carter to Homecoming, Tony Stark was… well, he’d probably skipped right over training wheels in favor of retrofitting his bicycle with jet propulsion, and Steve wasn’t exactly a senior citizen or anything, but the point was that he had no business imagining _his barely adult and significantly younger charge_ naked.

And he really had to learn not to trust sudden silences; the sketchbook was abruptly snatched from his hands. Steve lunged off the couch after it, throat closing, but Tony danced away, holding it overhead and flipping through it with a determined squint. “See, you’re not even drawing my watch-toy-time-thing. You should be drawing my watch-toy-time-thing, I spent a whole week on all the little—wow, this is, look at the tail, what is that, a unicycling monkey?”

“It’s how you make me feel.” Steve succeeded in grabbing the book back. He wrestled it shut, cramming the loose pages back into place.

“Kinky. I love that. Even though I’m pretty sure it was an insult.” Tony made a halfhearted swipe for the drawing pad again and subsided, pouting. “Come on, Steve, I love everything about you and you never let me see what you draw.”

 _Because unicycling monkeys aren’t the only thing in here._ A supremely bad idea, bringing this drawing pad to Tony’s lab. Should have brought the one filled with different hand studies. “They aren’t ready.”

“Oh, oh yeah, I get that. I never let Justin see my projects before they’re done, and he’s always all over me to show him, you’d think he was trying to steal my, oh hey, you dropped one.”

Tony stooped, swept up the paper lying facedown on the floor, then stared at it, eyes widening. Steve’s heart plummeted into his socked feet.

“Wow.” Tony held the drawing up to the light. Steve could see the dark, familiar shape of it through the paper, and it made him cringe. He thought about making a play for it, but the look on Tony’s face said it was far too late. “Hey, whoa, this is me?”

It was just a profile, Tony’s face in low lamplight, oil on his cheek, the edges softened by feathery pencil strokes and careful smudges. Steve went from silent heart attack to near-drugged relief in a second flat. Not that there were inappropriate drawings of Tony in there or anything. Steve was _not_ that kind of weirdo. But this sketch was distanced in a way that most of the others weren’t: cool, contemplative. An outsider’s point of view. Not so…so… 

_Besotted,_ a voice teased. The jerk sounded like Bucky.

Tony was staring at him, looking completely bewildered as he rarely did. Steve cleared his throat. It took effort. “I—Yes. It’s you.”

“You drew me?” Again with the pink cheeks. Since when did Tony Stark blush?

Steve nodded. Tony cradled the drawing, his fingers as gentle at the edges as though the page were made of spun sugar. 

“In the lab?”

‘The lab’ was a kind way of describing the defunct kitchen space on the mansion’s sub-level. In reality, the Starks had simply done away with a servants’ basement they never used, leaving a hollowed out gallery for their frankly insane son to claim and fill with the hundreds of projects usurping his attention on any given day. Hot-rod-red hover boots trailing wires sat in the east corner; a weird shield-like prototype with skeletal spindles around a star lay propped against a state-of-the-art StarkTech holoprojector, and half of what Steve could swear was a hadron collider snaked the circumference of the room. Not much got finished around here, but when it did, by god, when it _did—_

Steve shrugged, itching to pull the paper away. “You’re happy down here. It shows.”

A beat, and Tony scoffs. “I am not happy down here, Steve. I could be though. Do you know what would make me really happy?”

Steve sighed. “Tony, don’t say it.”

“If the love of my life would, you know, make out with me. Or more, I’d take more. A lot more. There’s a couch over there, you were just sitting on it. Like I said, giving it up, right here.”

“Okay, first off, I am not the love of your life.”

“And yet, here I am with the life-love! Did I tell you I dream about you? I do, every night. The best dreams. Come on, you could literally make a lifetime of dreams come true. I actually strategized. Took me two and a half weeks to get it all right, you’d be so proud. Three step program, we could be bumping uglies in a hot minute.” 

Good lord, Tony had the stamina of a right wing fanatic, how was anyone supposed to combat this? “You’re only eighteen, you haven’t lived long enough to know what you want in a lover,” and god, he should not have opened himself up like that, he realized this, but:

“I want you in a lover. Steve. _Steve._ Seriously, put us both out of our misery, it’s getting to the point where I can’t think. My brain is turning to mush, and look at the way my hands shake, I can barely hold a spanner wrench anymore—”

Steve pointed across the room. “You built a palm-sized excimer laser just yesterday morning.”

“—sheer luck, a hundred monkeys locked in a room with a nineties-era Nokia and a photodiode would come up with a rudimentary barcode scanner sooner or later—” 

“And blasted _that hole_ in the wall.” 

“Because you refuse to cop a feel!” Tony threw his hands in the air. “Stress energy! It’s not my fault.”

Steve rubbed a hand over his face and set his sketchbook aside, out of Tony’s reach. “What’s this incredible piece of equipment you just made, then?”

Tony tangented at the speed of sound. “Oh, so it was supposed to track the wearer through time, you know, like a GPS? Kind of? Except I don’t know how to get around the Planck thing without turning the human brain into pea soup so it mostly just static shocks you a lot and then calls out for pizza. Which,” Tony’s eyes slid sideways, “might I add, is a prime example of how the lack of mind-blowing sex with my soulmate is completely annihilating my genius.”

So actually, no tangenting at all.

**

Steve had a nice suite at the Stark mansion. It was in the same wing as Tony’s and was easily the size of the entire three-bedroom apartment he and Buck had shared with their buddy Clint after Clint emancipated himself from his crazy brother. That apartment had been cramped with the three of them, until two years in when Clint fell hard for a strait-laced guy named Phil who was older than all of them but kind to the core and loved Clint like burning, and then Bucky and Steve enlisted.

But anyway, Steve’s suite. It was vaulted and airy, with floor-to-ceiling casement windows overlooking the immaculate lawn below and filling the rooms with warm light during the afternoons. There was plenty of space for Steve’s easel and workout equipment. Not that he needed the latter; there was also a full gym on the floor above, complete with a four-lane pool. But that wasn’t always convenient. It helped him to work out a half hour before bed with the curtains drawn and just a single lamp on; to wind down, stretch out his muscles. Turn everything off switch by switch. Being able to sit in his pajamas in the quiet of his days off and sketch, paint, whatever he felt like doing in the moment, was not something he’d gotten used to in a year, and he treasured every opportunity.

But some nights, it wasn’t enough.

He could see Bucky. Snow whirled between them, the dark shapes of their platoon shuffling through the drifts, but Bucky was clear, hair loose and long, not buzzed back as it should have been, standing before Steve in the storm wearing jeans and a shirt. Steve squinted, and Bucky raised both arms, except one of them was missing, Buck’s lumpy, scarred shoulder hunching grotesquely as he waved and shouted.

“What?” Steve yelled against the howling wind. “What are you saying?” 

Bucky shouted and shouted, his arm waving more frantically as Steve trudged closer. The sound drowned under ominous groaning, cracking, ice beneath their feet that they hadn’t known was there. A lake, a frozen lake under the snow.

“Get back!” Steve cried, turning to save his men, but the snow flew up in a sheet and the ice was thunderous, his men falling, shouting, tumbling down, and then the ground beneath Steve’s feet was gone.

He dropped, into cold black-blue. Sound whumped a cannon against his ears, then silenced. Water pressed in on all sides, light draining faintly from above. Steve kicked. Clawed. Opened his mouth and screamed. Ice filled his lungs. His pack yanked him down, down toward the bottom, his boots were suddenly rocks, his gun useless at his side, his skin a million nettles, his eyes freezing in their sockets, the black wrapping around his body, and he reached, stretched for the hole growing smaller and smaller above—

He jolted awake to darkness and heat, the sense of sound just uttered. His hands seized soft blankets; his throat sealed shut. He choked for air, clawed his way up, ears ringing, no light, _no light,_ lashed out with both hands—and a voice broke through.

“—s okay, you’re safe, you’re, Steve, just—Steve. Steve, you’re home. God, it’s okay, you’re _home. Steve.”_

His name.

Ice. Thick and cold and—black—

His men—

Arms wrapped around him, their grip as fierce as that of the frozen lake. Fiercer. Steve couldn’t breathe. He gasped for air. Couldn’t open his eyes. Couldn’t see. 

“Steve?” The voice shook. “You’re safe. I swear to god you’re safe. You’re home, you’re in your bed, I’m here with you. I’m not leaving you alone. Okay? I’m here.”

With him.

The cold receded, fingers drawing back into the dark. Steve hauled in a breath at last, air, air and not water filling his lungs. 

The arms tightened around him again. He smelled home, and peace, and he sank.

**

It was raining when he opened his eyes again, tapping against the glass. The room was dim and warm, but outside, thunder rolled. Steve blinked once, twice, and made out the ceiling high above, night-orange shafts of light crossing the motionless fan.

A dream. A nightmare. He could sense the tendrils of it at the room’s edges, but the oppressive chill had fled, the tightness around his lungs spent at last.

At the sound of a soft exhalation, he turned his head.

Tony lay curled half a foot from him, bundled in the comforter from his own room, his head on the end of Steve’s pillow. His mouth was open, and steady breaths moved his lips as he slept. The rest of the bedcovers, Steve’s sheets and blankets, were tousled badly, but they were drawn up to Steve’s shoulders and tucked close around him, and the quilt from the back of his couch had been unfolded and laid over him. 

Aside from Tony’s face, the only part of him that was visible was his hand. It lay outside the blanket, circling Steve’s wrist. Tony’s fingers pressed to his pulse point. Steve stared at them, his own hand lax against the mattress and Tony’s thumb dark against the skin of his inner arm. 

Thunder grumbled again, farther out, but Steve, watching Tony’s slack face and counting his breaths, hardly noticed.

**

Early mornings were always a pain.

“Come on, I’m a tech guy, I’m never going to get close enough to bother with this crap. I need coffee, why can’t I ever have coffee before we do this? Pretty sure you have a caffeine drip stashed away in your closet, the way _you_ are in the mornings. Not fair, cheater—oh, I’ve figured it out. You want me to be half asleep, it’s the only way you actually win.”

A pain in Steve’s ear, specifically. “Whatever helps you avoid sleep at night, Tony.” He checked Tony’s wraps—the left one always looked loose—then pushed him back toward his corner of the mat, adding a flick to his temple. “Right now, though? Wake up.”

“I would, except you just rolled me out of bed on a Saturday. Give a guy a minute to open his eyes.”

Steve launched a punch that Tony barely blocked, then skipped out of range of the sullen answering jab. “We’ve been down here for half an hour already.”

Tony wiped his nose with his wrist. “And I’m still not awake. That should tell you something. Circadian rhythms, Rogers, they are a thing.”

“What it tells me is that you need extra practice.” He lunged suddenly, making Tony scramble back with a squawk. Steve grinned. “You’re out of shape.”

“God, you are _so old,_ what do you do at godawful o’clock every morning, count your sock collection?”

“Funny.” The next few seconds were an exercise in feints and punches, until Tony attempted a frustrated kick that overbalanced him on the follow-through, sending him right into Steve’s space. He swung out at Steve’s chin, a haymaker that Steve caught at the wrist. Steve spun in, using Tony’s own momentum to send him stumbling forward, then forced him over with his arm firmly against his back.

“You’re dropping your right shoulder.” Steve gave Tony’s arm a little twist behind him. “Again.”

Tony winced. “You ever think—” A minor, fruitless struggle. “I’m just doing it to get you close to me?”

Steve froze, then rolled his eyes and spun the other way, wheeling Tony’s arm up and around this time and, with another surprised squeak from its owner, flipped him onto his back on the mat. He leaned over, hands on his hips. “That close enough for you?”

Tony kicked at Steve’s calves as he stepped away. “Only time you ever touch me anyway,” he grumbled.

Steve circled to Tony’s other side and reached down. “Up you come.”

“Come, you say? Not by myself, I hope?”

Steve glowered, and Tony begrudgingly took his hand. In a second, he was on his feet, bouncing out of reach and exaggerating a boxing stance. 

“Alright, hot stuff. Third time’s—”

“Third?”

Tony huffed and cracked his neck. “Okay, seventh time’s the…whatever, semantics.” He extended his arm and waved Steve forward with only his fingertips. “Alright, captain, either we do this or you do me, I’m not picky.”

There had once been a time when innuendo had not been the first and last word in their conversations. Nearly the entire year Steve had worked for the Starks, in fact. But the week prior to Tony’s eighteenth birthday, it was like a switch had kicked over. Tony’s formidable brainpower had gone in one very decisive direction, leaving Steve, who had been comfortable with his own fledgling adoration that certainly would come to nothing, fighting to stay on his toes. “Tony, for god’s sake, stop joking.”

“For the last time, I am not joking. But I could do you instead if that’s your thing. Really, as long as it’s you, me, and a good sweaty time, I—”

Steve took his legs out from under him. “You say you like sweat, but…”

Tony pushed up onto his elbows. “Not this kind of sweat. This? Is smelly sweat. Gross sweat. Nasty gym equipment sweat with other people’s feet mixed in.”

“It’s the same sweat, Tony.”

“You say that, but you’ve never experienced the other kind of sweat with me.” Tony picked himself up and resumed bouncing around on his toes. “Through no lack of effort on my part, can I just say. Hell, I’ll even do feet if that’s what you’re into, because it’s you, Steve. Satisfaction guaranteed, I can provide references.”

Steve frowned and Tony winked back at him, puckering up his lips. So Steve took his legs out again.

It was a good bout once Tony buckled down and got to work. Tony was many things—distraction, distract _er,_ and highly distractible—but above all, he was a superb student. When, of course, you found something interesting enough to catch his notice. Steve had ended up pulling out all the stops: Krav Maga, Sanshou, Aikido, Tae Kwon Do, two boxing styles, three theories of grappling, basically everything he’d been trained to do in Black Ops. But mixing it all together was the key, keeping Tony both surprised and fascinated. Tony _was_ a tech guy. He built things outside his own body, and his main interest for a long while had been building things with the (loudly articulated) intent to counter every physical move Steve made on the mat. They spent whole afternoons in the lab after workouts, cataloguing Steve’s form step by step, until Steve was sweating more from holding distinct positions than he ever had duking it out in the gym. Tony complained without remorse any time he had to practice the skills himself, but he also improved, so Steve could handle the exorbitant whining alongside the kicking and punching.

It was a lot harder to handle the brazen seduction attempts. He managed, in the name of keeping Tony safe. Mostly, he just wanted the kid to be able to _fight,_ if he had to.

Tony actually got under his guard this time, a feinted kick followed by a higher real kick, and when Steve knocked his leg away with an inside block, Tony hooked an arm around Steve’s side and threw his weight, and Steve overbalanced before he could compensate.

Tony hit the mat with an ‘oof’ made all the more pained when Steve came down on top of him. He only just caught himself on one elbow, sparing Tony some cracked ribs.

For a blinding, blank moment, all there was, was Tony’s narrow chest heaving under him. Sweat beaded on Tony’s temples and upper lip, and the heat from his body poured into Steve’s where they pressed together. His eyes were wide, a devastatingly deep brown. Pupils blown.

“Hey,” Tony said after a moment. His voice cracked; his hands slid up the backs of Steve’s arms, as tentative and fragile as butterflies. “Hey, Steve.”

The scent of him, his sweat and his faded cologne—why the hell was he wearing cologne, what had he been doing last night that he needed cologne?—filled Steve’s nose. Tony’s every exhalation hit his lips, warm and soft, smelling of mint toothpaste, and his body shifted minutely, slipping more neatly against Steve’s, like they fit together.

Steve pushed off him, dropping onto his knee and rolling to the far side of the mat. He got up in the same movement, heading for the bench to grab his towel and bury his face in it. Damn it, he was half-hard. With the thin sweats they were both wearing, there was no way Tony wouldn’t notice. 

“Done for today,” he rasped without looking over his shoulder. He swigged half his water bottle in one draught, then regretted it when he heard the choked sound Tony made behind him. He glanced back then, couldn’t help it, his cheeks already hot. 

Tony lay where he’d fallen, knees propped apart, head turned on the mat and eyes fixed on Steve. He was definitely aroused, not hidden at all by his shorts, and his ears were a bright, telling red. The air in the room stifled; Tony blinked, then lifted up on one elbow, his shirt riding up his belly, and his hand, the free one, settled there against the hem of his pants, fingers trailing—

“Make sure you stretch out.” It sounded like he was being strangled. Steve fumbled his bag over his shoulder and left the gym on uneven strides.

**

After that, Tony unleashed a proper and extremely judgmental hell.

Nothing Steve did was good enough to cure the oppressive pout on Tony’s face. Tony dressed in deep wine reds. Fitted slacks. Pinstripes that cut his lanky figure into keen relief. Once Steve came upon him in nothing but low-slung black sweats and a filthy white tank top, covered in grease and practically translucent. His hair was perpetually mussed, as though he’d just had someone fisting their fingers in it, and whenever Steve came to get him from his room, he always seemed to know, and answered the door half-clothed. He invariably sat too close, leaned in too far, and he smelled so damned good it sent Steve’s head spinning. 

Clipped answers didn’t stop the tirade of suggestive questions. Looking away only seemed to infuriate Tony into coming even closer until Steve had no choice but to look at him, to see what he was so blatantly doing. Tony never touched him, but he might as well have, the way his gaze lingered and dragged over Steve’s body. Steve spent most of his days in a half-aroused state, egged on by the drop of Tony’s voice, the sideways flick of his eyes just at the right moment. Sometimes by nothing at all: just Tony being Tony, now given more freedom from his parents as a legal adult. 

Tony went onto club dancefloors and came out covered in other people’s sweat and body paint. He skipped his expensive graduate-level classes, only for Steve to find him behind the loading bay at the rear of the campus bookstore, joint in hand and draped over laughing girls more than a few years older than he was. He snuck away from Steve at parties and was dragged back by a resigned Rhodey with his collar opened, his tie missing, and lipstick on his cheeks. 

“Ah, hell,” Rhodey muttered one night, wiping a hand over his face as they watched Tony eel away yet again into the sea of writhing bodies. “Look, man, could you just _do_ something already?”

Steve hated every second of it. It burned in his veins, spiking into a swiftly suppressed bitterness whenever he came upon Tony in compromising positions, glaring at Steve coolly from beside the stranger of the day, and obviously waiting for Steve to say something, to start that fight.

He didn’t, by the skin of his teeth.

The day he finally told his therapist was profoundly awkward.

It took him thirty minutes of their session to outline all that Tony had done: the bed invasion—

(“I mean, I didn’t even hear him come in, Sam. How am I supposed to protect him when I don’t even know he’s there? I was in the middle of a flashback, I could have seriously hurt him!”

“But you didn’t hurt him, Steve.”

“Well. No.”)

—and the incorrect labeling of their relationship—

(“He literally told that asshole at the club that I, his boyfriend, would knock him into New Jersey if he didn’t take his hands off ‘the Stark assets.’” 

“And would you have?”

“Well, yeah, because he shouldn’t have been touching Tony anywhere, but that is not the point here.”)

—and the extremely inappropriate birthday gift sitting in Tony’s closet right where Steve saw it every time he went in there to grab a un-oily shirt for his charge— 

(“Sam. It’s a set of red, white, and blue boxer briefs. With big white stars on the… you know.”

“The back?”

“No.”

“Ah.”)

—and the lewd jokes and the bedroom eyes and the taunting with his other companions and the outright flirting and, most embarrassingly, The Incident during training. 

“He won’t stop. It’s a bad idea and he’s so young and he doesn’t care. He’s barely legal. I can’t _think.”_

“Steve,” Sam said slowly, “before you go any further, I feel I should remind you that I’m a mandated reporter. I’m legally bound to say something if—”

“Oh god, Sam, I haven’t touched him,” Steve groaned, panicked, head dropping into his hands. “I swear I haven’t, ever. I wouldn’t.”

“If,” Sam continued after a pause, “it sounds like he’s using your employment status to coerce or manipulate you into an abusive situation.”

Steve dug his fingers into his eyes. “Oh.”

“The other thing, too,” Sam added wryly, and Steve groaned again.

“Maybe I should resign. Buck just did. Can’t do his job properly when he feels the way he does about—when his detail is… But she can protect herself just fine. Tony wouldn’t be safe. I can’t do that, can’t let that happen.”

Sam drew a breath and let it out slowly. “Do you like Tony, Steve?”

“Of course.”

“More or less than this job?”

Steve turned it over for several long moments. It was only fair. But the fact, frank and unflinching, refused to be suppressed. He shut his eyes, gave himself one more second to ignore it, to live in the bliss of the unacknowledged. 

“Sam, I think I love him.”

Sam patted him on the shoulder. “Then here’s what I think you should do.”

**

And he really meant to. Good advice, if unsettling. Steve had been to war. He could deal with unsettling.

Only, Advanced Idea Mechanics decided that kidnapping was an amateur’s sport.

Steve knew it was AIM as soon as he saw them coming. For one thing, Tony was beyond excellent at sniffing out scumbags, especially those after Stark patents. For another, Aldrich Killian’s goons always wore these idiotic grapefruit-yellow ties. 

“No, but really, have you guys ever heard of stealth mode?” Tony griped, throwing his arms out and scattering a spray of blueberries from the bag he held. They were in front of the biggest marquee in Times Square. Steve tossed both their ice cream cones into the nearest trash can and tried unsuccessfully to get Tony behind him. “I have the cheat codes,” Tony shouted around Steve’s arm at the two approaching ne’er-do-wells. “For literally every game you’re failing at, including Ninja Gaiden Two!”

Steve was expecting the scowls, even return threats, because Tony was matchlessly gifted in bringing out that side in even the most stoic of opponents. 

What he wasn’t expecting were the guns.

“Shit—” With a tremendous heave, he shoved Tony back and dove for the flash of metal. The first guy barely got the gun out before Steve knocked it to the pavement, but the other attacker, a woman with a disturbing light in her eyes, was far luckier: pain erupted in Steve’s shoulder almost before he heard the shot. Steve grabbed her arm, twisted it up, snapped the joint with a brutal wrench. She howled and hammered him in the chin with her elbow, then landed a chop to his injured shoulder and lunged past him. Sudden fury obliterated the pain. He shouted, tackled her to the pavement mere feet from Tony’s shoes, and the next thing he knew, a massive weight was atop him, a meaty hand tangling in his hair. Steve had just time enough to realize it was the guy he’d disarmed before a weird electronic whine hit his ears. There was a boom and a yelp, and the guy on his back was no longer on his back.

Steve looked up to see that the yelping was Tony, frantically shedding a smoking black glove-like thing from his hand and slapping out burning embers on his sleeve. 

And then the muzzle of a gun bit into the pit of Steve’s belly.

He twisted on instinct just as it went off. Heat sliced into his side. He slammed the woman’s hand—how did she even still have a hold on her weapon?—into the cement with a satisfying crack of bone. She screamed again. Steve wheeled back, flipped her over, and knocked her out with one straight punch.

Everything was a little hazy after that. Steve remembered slumping off her onto the pavement, panting up at the sky and feeling strangely warm all through his torso. Agitated voices buzzed around him and the sound of nearing sirens reverberated off the buildings.

“Steve!” Someone dropped to their knees beside him. Hands scrabbled at his shirt. “Oh my god, Steve?”

“Tony.” His lips felt very dry. He just wanted to sleep. He found Tony’s wrist and squeezed. _Are you alright? Are you hurt?_ He couldn’t quite make his mouth move. 

He’d been shot before, in Helmand Province. He remembered it feeling like this, not quite being able to piece together what the medic above him was asking, feeling like he’d been immersed in a hot tub, a horrid ringing in his ears and the thought that at least his mother, already being dead, would not have to receive a folded flag from a chaplain on her front porch.

Tony’s hands clutched at his shirt, at his sides under his jacket, then shot up and cupped his face. One palm was dark with soot. He had red on his forehead, like a fingerprint. “Steve, talk to me. Steve? Come on, Cap, stay awake, look at me, you’re going to be alright. Okay? Steve?”

He swallowed, and clutched Tony’s wrist as the sirens filled the air, and nodded and nodded and nodded.

~tbc~


	3. Chapter 3

He should have known he wasn’t going to make it out scot-free. 

“Don’t ever do that again, you absolute _asshole.”_ Tony socked him hard in the uninjured shoulder, and there was nothing humorous about the fire in his eyes or the sting of his words.

Steve sighed. He had a headache. Should have locked the door, but then again, Tony would have just hacked and reprogrammed the lock. “Tony.”

“No! Fuck you, you don’t get to just—they shot you. In the street. Twice! What the hell were you thinking?”

“That I was doing my job,” Steve snapped, abruptly angry, and unable to take the disgust in those eyes along with the nagging pain through his shoulder. Physical therapy was no picnic, especially with Bucky now unemployed and free to put him through his paces. At least Tony had waited until the rib graze had healed. Steve had barely seen him at all during the interim, and that, _that_ had been grinding at his nerves, too, not knowing where Tony was.

Tony snarled into his face. “I didn’t ask you to die for me!”

“No, your parents _pay_ me to die for you,” colder and blunter than he’d ever said anything in his life, but it was the truth, never mind that Steve would die for Tony without a paycheck of any kind, without three squares a day, without the lavish quarters in the sumptuous uptown mansion, without any compensation at all because he couldn’t bear the thought of those keen brown eyes closing forever, that rambling, frenetic voice silencing for good, the warmth in that living, breathing, brilliant person leeching away. 

“I don’t care what they pay you for,” Tony shouted. _“I’ll_ pay you. I’ll give you anything you want to never do something so stupid again.”

“It’s not stupid to keep you alive,” Steve ground out.

“You don’t even care. You don’t care if I live or die! Just want your money, do you? Well, I can give you money. I don’t mind paying you to just be with me, I figured that’s what it would take anyway, that’s what all the others wanted—”

Others? “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I would have dealt with it! I took care of the guy, I had it handled, but you just dove in and—”

“You nearly blasted your arm off!”

“What does it matter?” Tony’s eyes were full and damp, and the whole of him shuddered, right down to his clenched hands. “You don’t even like me!”

And that was just so brutally untrue, Steve’s mind went white.

“You’re right, I don’t _like_ you. I haven’t _liked_ you in ages, you ungrateful brat. I can’t sleep at night over how much I don’t like you, there isn’t a word on this earth for the way I feel about you—”

Tony was on him before he could draw his next breath, arms locked over Steve’s shoulders and legs wrapped around his hips, all heat and tremble and stuttered breath, and his _mouth,_ hot and open and desperate against Steve’s, and Steve lost his last fumbling grip.

“God, Tony,” he gasped into Tony’s mouth, then kissed him hard, thrusting his chin up and chasing the whimper building in Tony’s throat. Tony scrabbled at his shirt collar, a hand seizing in Steve’s hair, kissing and kissing and _kissing_ him, determined and raw and somehow painfully inexperienced, his tongue fumbling in Steve’s mouth, and Steve wondered if he’d ever actually kissed anyone before. But the thought was fleeting, there in a breath and gone the next. Tony’s chest heaved against his, his thighs squeezing around Steve’s waist, sliding down despite his grip, and Steve stumbled forward toward the nearest surface he knew of and bore Tony down onto his back on his bed.

A gasp punched out of Tony as Steve dropped atop him, one of his hands slamming to the mattress, his body undulating up further over the bedding, Steve’s perfectly tucked military corners coming loose with every move Tony made. “Come on,” Tony whispered, his voice strange and high, an echo of that day on the training mat. His cheeks, his throat, were so flushed. He wrestled Steve’s shirt up from his waist, dragging it over Steve’s bandaged ribs, over his shoulders. Steve pulled it the final step free and tossed it away, diving back into Tony’s reddened mouth, the tentatively groomed beard he’d been growing tickling at Steve’s chin, Tony’s gorgeous brown eyes going dark and muddled. He was thin, wiry in the chest, with lean muscle and a trail of dark hair weaving from just under his navel into his pants. Steve watched, mesmerized by his own hand as he snapped buttons open, but then Tony pushed his own pants down, wriggling his hips free and kicking them off with an undignified grunt; his leg locked around the back of Steve’s thigh and hauled him down, and both of them hissed as their bodies met again.

Tony was panting like a bellows. His eyes skittered over Steve’s face, dipping again and again to his mouth, searching his eyes, tripping over his chin and cheeks, and there was apprehension there, but Steve was too far gone to even try to parse what he should be gleaning from that look. When he leaned in and kissed Tony again, a smile broke over Tony’s face, marring the kiss itself but tasting so very wonderful on Steve’s lips.

Eventually Steve’s own trousers were gone, in a knot of kisses and pants and half-words. Tony’s hands skated over his body, not landing anywhere for long, and that should have clued Steve in to exactly how much practical experience Tony had, but it just slowed him down into a steady, instinctive, _cautious_ shift and thrust, wrenching deep breaths from Tony’s lungs. Tony’s eyes rolled up again and again, then snapped back to Steve’s like he was furious he’d looked away for even a second, and Steve… Steve couldn’t stop looking. Cataloguing the way Tony’s ribs disappeared and reappeared with each breath, the way the column of his throat tensed and relaxed, the way his Adam’s apple bobbed whenever Steve pressed against him, the spray of freckles around his clavicle from too-long days spent in the sun at Coney Island, the feverish and shrewd dart of his eyes. 

“What do you want?” he managed, thinking he knew but wanting to hear it.

“I,” Tony croaked, sounding helpless. His cheeks flushed even redder. “You know. I want…”

“Come here,” Steve breathed, lifting his face away from the curve of Tony’s shoulder, the salt of Tony’s sweat licking over his tongue. He rolled onto his back, pulling Tony with him between his legs. He had a feeling, gut-deep and impossible to escape, that Tony had never done anything like this, at least not with a man. Maybe not with anybody, though that was less certain. _He paid them, he as good as said. To hang out with him, to like him, to leave lipstick on his cheeks._ Maybe more. It hurt Steve’s heart worse than any physical wound, that anyone could treat Tony like that, could make him think that he was… was not wanted. Not worth loving, not worth the trouble or the effort.

His hand found its way to his bedside drawer and searched around inside until he located lube and the lone condom. Free and without frills, pressed into his palm by an enterprising young booth-minder at one of Tony’s university fairs. It had just been easier to keep it than to try to hand it back—his thoughts had been stubbornly on the idea that maybe Tony would run out one day and come asking if he had any extras—but now he was elated that he hadn’t thrown it out.

 _This here is a mistake,_ a voice chirped in his head, quickly drowned under the frantic nature of Tony’s kisses as he realized what was about to happen. Tony became a quivering, juddering handful, his hands everywhere, his mouth panting and open, his dick straining hard against Steve’s abdomen. Tony was not a mistake. And Steve couldn’t side with uncertainty anymore. He uncapped the lube, barely managed to work himself loose under the flood of Tony’s kisses and the gasps of his name. He nearly came from his fingers alone, from the heat of Tony’s body, the smell of his skin and hair. And then Tony was fumbling the condom on, grabbing the lube himself, and Steve was taking a swift and sudden breath as Tony pushed in, and then, and then…

Tony came with a shout that drew out into a whimper against Steve’s throat, his hips jerking wildly against Steve, stomach a shudder of muscle over Steve’s dick, and Steve had never come so fast in his life, untouched, but he couldn’t hold it, he fell headlong over the edge in a jumble of heat and shock and bliss. When he came back to himself, his arms were full of a badly heaving Tony, hot exhalations dampening his throat, hips still giving minute twitches.

“Oh god,” Tony whimpered into Steve’s neck. He squeezed hard enough at Steve’s sides that it hurt. “Steve, I… Oh god.”

Steve needed him. He’d never needed another person so much. It eclipsed everything else. He dragged Tony up and kissed him, deep and penetrating, tasting every inch of Tony’s mouth.

**

He got up in the quiet just after dawn, feeling prickly from shared sweat, and relaxed like he’d never been. Tony sprawled on his stomach in a tangle of sheets, his left leg covered and his right leg bare, his back a creamy slope in the darkness and his bottom curving into shadow. His hair was dark, thick-looking across Steve’s white pillow. 

The room smelled of them.

Steve’s phone began to buzz from the pocket of his pants on the floor. Steve fished it out and looked at the screen for a long moment, and then switched off the alarm with a sigh. 

He eased off the bed, padded into the bathroom, and cleaned himself off as best he could with a wet washcloth. A shower would have been better, but… Well, he didn’t know that he could stand still for long enough. He felt jumpy. Primed for what was coming next and what would follow after. 

When he came out of the bathroom again, it was to dim silence, broken only by the sound of shallow breathing. Steve leaned over the bed and kissed Tony’s temple, sweeping a lock of hair behind his ear. “Tony.”

“Mmph.” The lock just fell forward again, drifting across his eye where it became impossible to separate the strands from Tony’s long eyelashes. 

“Hey, Tony?”

Nothing but a murmured sigh. Steve let himself have those minutes and watched him sleep. 

When he could make himself look away again, he found his shorts and pulled them on, dressed in clean clothing—a dark gray suit from the closet—and grabbed his phone again. He left the room as quietly as he could, already dialing the number he needed with his free hand.

**

When he got back to his suite an hour later, Tony was gone. The bedding had been pushed into some semblance of its usual neatness; Steve pictured Tony pacing about the room with his hands going from his hair to the sheets as he tried to sort things into order, and regretted leaving, even though he’d had to.

He just wished he’d gotten back in time to—but it wouldn’t have mattered. Howard Stark had sent Jarvis to get his son almost before Steve had left his office. And that could have been way more awkward, all things considered, Jarvis finding Tony in Steve’s room as he likely had. It was Howard’s general dismissiveness, or impassivity maybe, concerning his son that probably saved Steve from anything worse. 

Howard was a seasoned businessman, adept at keeping his personal feelings from the public eye. Some thought it unbridled disinterest in Tony. Steve wasn’t sure. But he was wary of Howard Stark. He fought with himself over it repeatedly.

There was nothing to do but wait, and Steve didn’t wait for anything easily. He busied himself with dragging out the two large suitcases that had brought all his worldly belongings into the Stark mansion a little over a year ago and began packing up his clothing. Shoes, socks, shirts and trousers. His good three-piece suit that SHIELD had commissioned for the Stark galas, and his work suits, pressed and lined up neatly in the closet by Jarvis. His holster and harness. His ammo from the safe. 

He was just organizing his modest but beloved collection of books in the bottom of the second case when the door burst open, banging against the wall. Steve looked up. Tony stood in the aperture, his hand still on the knob. He looked young, his hair a mess, faded jeans and the same cracked-decal band shirt that Steve had peeled off him last night. But he also looked ancient, too wise in the eyes and around the mouth. No shoes; his toes curled tensely in the carpet. He looked around the room with the slow strain of someone trying to evade what he was seeing. But Tony Stark never looked away from anything.

“So you’re just leaving.”

Steve set the stack of books down on the bed and turned to face him. “Tony.”

“I didn’t expect you to just pack up. Sneak out? Not exactly the middle of the night, but you’re not really all that drama, are you, and that would just be histrionic, waiting until dark for full effect—”

“Tony.”

“I mean, I get it.” Tony’s eyes glimmered. “I really do get it. I wouldn’t want to stay here, it’s only the nicest room in the entire place, but I guess it wouldn’t look so nice when it just reminds you of, you know, when the person you just accidentally slept with is still sleeping, all unsuspecting _in the bed—”_

 _“Tony._ It was a meeting with your father about my contract. Seven sharp. That’s why I left.”

“You… Oh.” If possible, Tony’s face fell even further. His cheeks flushed, then paled worse than before. 

“I didn’t renew,” Steve said, watching him.

Tony’s shoulders jumped up in a shrug. “Of course you didn’t, why would you?” He said it more to himself, to his feet to be precise, his tone gone dull. “Listen, I know I overstepped. I know I did, but you don’t have to go. He said you’re leaving, I don’t want you to leave, we can just pretend we never, I mean—”

“So that I can be with you,” Steve interrupted gently.

Tony blinked. Wiped his eyes and blinked again. Looked up, finally. “What?”

“I didn’t sign a new contract because I can’t be your bodyguard and be with you. Like I want to be.”

Tony’s mouth hung open. He wasn’t processing. Steve could see the gears turning but refusing to catch. God, he had no idea what made Tony think that he didn’t deserve the things he wanted. He had suspicions about the who. It was no small part of why he took the job in the first place, because _someone_ had to protect this kid—this man—when the people who should have been doing it weren’t.

He had no idea why anyone would ever want to hurt Tony Stark in the first place.

“You quit.”

Steve nodded.

“Because of me.”

“For you.”

Tony waved it away with a signature eye-roll and stepped closer, into the room. Steve felt every inch between them, the space taut and quivering. “Yeah, but. Why, again?”

“I can’t be your bodyguard and—”

“Be with me like you want to, I know.” Another wave. Another step closer. Tony’s toes clenched again into the carpet. “Like, sex?”

Steve blushed. Nodded.

“You and me sex?”

“More than that,” Steve offered haltingly. He rubbed his suddenly sweating palms on his jeans. “If you want.”

“Oh, I want,” Tony breathed. His eyes went sloe-soft, climbing over Steve like fingers. “I just… You changed your mind? You don’t like me.”

Steve frowned, aborting a step of his own. How could Tony still be confused about that, how could he… Oh. Because Steve had never actually said it. Obviously. “I love you.”

Tony’s next breath came in on a quiet gasp. No one else would ever be able to tell it had happened. But Steve knew what to look for now: Tony’s slightly too-wide eyes, the way he chewed his lower lip. The dip of his chin as he stared Steve down. “Why?”

And that was just _it._ Steve crossed to the door in three steps, pulling Tony into his arms and kissing him full on the mouth. No hesitance, no caution. Just full-throttle and declarative, all in. His mom always said it was how he did things best.

“I’m done ignoring how I feel,” he said when he pulled back, watching Tony’s face. His eyes had slipped closed; his face was slack, lips parted, as though he were savoring and didn’t want to stop. “And I’m done trying to dissuade you. You’ve become everything to me. It’s not a job anymore. Hasn’t been a job in a long time.”

“You didn’t answer the—”

“You’re smart. And you’re stubborn, and you care, more than you should. You know how to talk to me and you’re not afraid of anything under the sun.”

“I’m too young,” Tony muttered, repeating Steve’s most oft-used rebuttal. His cheeks went bright red. It was fast becoming the most endearing thing Steve had ever seen. “I don’t actually know what I’m doing.”

“Could have fooled me,” Steve murmured, nosing into a fond kiss. “Never came so fast in my life.”

Tony whimpered low in his throat, then flung his arms around Steve and hauled him in. And then it was long minutes of slow, dragging kisses, Tony’s tongue hot in Steve’s mouth, his deft fingers twisted in Steve’s hair. 

“Love you, too,” Tony mumbled, almost unintelligible. Then more clearly, “I have. For ages. You’re not _that_ much older than me, you jerk. God, you were so _hot,_ in your suit pants and button down shirt, with your harness all… all harnessy. Wanted to climb you, right there in front of my dad.”

Steve laughed. His first day had been an equal blur of nerves and lackadaisical indifference, still too fresh from the fields of war to really fit back into society, and there had been this rich and entitled _kid,_ this bruised kid, who talked too much and needed protection, who as it turned out was far too good at protecting himself, who had a light shining out of him, and for a while, all Steve had been able to see was him and his innocent insouciance, and his light. He had climbed back toward it.

It was the happiest he could remember being since before his mother died.

“You were the first guy I ever wanted,” Tony said, and Steve kissed him to stop these revelations. He could only take so much in one day.

“Got you a new bodyguard,” he finally whispered against Tony’s lips.

Tony grinned, wide and unfettered. He nuzzled his nose into Steve’s. “Are they as good looking as you?” 

Steve’s indignance was capped by Tony’s cackle as they tumbled back into the sheets, books thumping to the floor everywhere. 

...  
...  
...

**Epilogue**

 

It was a beautiful fall day in New York City. The sun was shining, the cabs were honking, and the rich and famous were out and about with their retinues.

Tony meandered up the street, ice cream in one hand, Steve’s hand in the other. “No. No way, I am not seeing that affront to science fiction everywhere, they completely butchered the Turing paradox. It’s dead to me, pick another movie.” 

Steve hummed. “You think that new action film with Keanu Reeves is any good?”

“I mean, maybe, but Keanu, so the question’s irrelevant. Oh, don’t front, Steve, you love Keanu.”

“I do?”

“Everyone loves Keanu, it’s coded into the human genome. Oh, hey. Hey, Barnes, I want to go see Tanisha again tonight. Or better yet, maybe she can come to us. That way no one’s pawing at her like a douchebag, like she’s not the most talented person they’ve seen their whole asinine lives. Does she have a bodyguard? I’ll get her a bodyguard, she deserves someone looking out for her. How do you vet a bodyguard anyway, are there sobriety tests?”

“Kill me now,” Bucky said pleasantly from behind them.

Steve threw his arm around Tony and took a sip of their milkshake.

~fin~


End file.
